


The Fall and The Landing

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [7]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Academic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astronomy, F/M, Jewish Reylo, Mythology - Freeform, Nerds in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: Ben stares at the dot in the sky, who knows how many millions of miles away, how it shines so much more brightly than the stars around it. The star is like Rey, and he’s falling in love with her. It’s a free-fall, brilliant and terrifying, and he can’t see the ground.“Rey, do you think about falling?”Another poke. “No, silly. I think aboutlanding.”Rey is an astronomer, Ben is a classicist, and they just might be falling in love.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Carrot's Romance Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801348
Comments: 27
Kudos: 107
Collections: Jewish Reylo Fics, Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	The Fall and The Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the Charity Anthology mods for making this wonderful collection happen! It has been a pleasure to be involved.
> 
> Thanks to MissCoppelia for her story [The Young Rabbi of Hillel of Theed University](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040155), which has had a profound influence on this one in ways I don't exactly understand even though I know they are there. If you haven't read that story please do it, it is beautiful in ways I can't explain. Thank you to her also for giving this one a read and ensuring that I - not Jewish - didn't make any errors (which I would have, without her kind assistance).
> 
> Thanks to CJWritesAgain for advising on matters of appropriate stars and constellations for these two bozos to bond over. Lyra was her idea, and I think it was perfect.
> 
> And as always thank you to flypaper_brain, for being the best beta and the best friend a person could ask for.

“Which one?”

Ben’s heartbeat speeds up as Rey shifts beside him. They're lying on their backs, on the scratchy woolen blanket that Ben keeps in the trunk of his car, just in case. He holds in a gasp when she presses her shoulder to his and leans over to point into the air just above him.

“The bright one. Right there,” she replies, and he somehow manages to keep breathing. He follows the line of her bare arm and up her finger, all the way to the night sky, black and clear but covered with dancing points of light—the planets and stars that Rey studies; her heart, her greatest joy.

He stares for a moment into the sky, doing his best to find the star she's pointing to. The only sounds are a few soft quacks from the ducks, settling in for the night down at the pond, and the distant _whoosh_ of a car passing by the access road. “That bright one? Between the two dim ones?” He points too, presses his hand against hers—a move that he recognizes is uncharacteristically brave, but she makes him feel like someone who would do something like that. She giggles, wraps her fingers around his and pulls their hands down and between them.

“Yes, that bright one, silly.”

Ben sighs and takes the opportunity to rub his thumb over Rey’s. She sighs too and snuggles down so she can rest her head against his shoulder. It's very warm—moving towards the end of July and even the nights are hot, but Ben doesn't mind Rey's warmth. He'll happily take whatever she wants to give him.

"That's Vega—also called Alpha Lyrae. It's the brightest star in the constellation Lyra."

"The lyre, hm?" He teases. "Can you tell me about the lyre?"

Rey pokes him in the side with her free hand and he laughs. “Is that what you teach your students? You lecture them about the lyre?”

He wishes. “Nah, until I get tenure I’m stuck with all the language courses. But once that’s done, it’ll be nothing but lyres and tapestries and pomegranates as far as the eye can see.”

"Lyres, tapestries, and pomegranates," she echoes dreamily, and Ben can imagine how her face looks; hazel eyes wide, lips pursed like they're waiting to be kissed. “Hey, you mentioned at Purim that you’d just submitted your tenure dossier. When will you know?”

Ben is shocked. He’d forgotten that they’d talked about that, amongst all the other things they’d discussed the night they'd met, and neither of them have mentioned it since. Still, this isn’t the conversation he wants to be having right now, with this person. He shrugs. “It was approved by the department, and I heard last week that it made it through the Tenure and Promotion Committee. Now it’s up to the Provost. I should know by the end of August. I’m not too worried about it.”

This is a lie—Ben is terrified—but Rey seems to sense it; she gives his hand a supportive squeeze. 

"Okay, I’ll put your language knowledge to work, then. Do you know what Vega means?"

Ben thinks for a moment. “It’s a word in Spanish, right? It means ‘meadow’ or something like that. Like Las Vegas?”

“Maybe, but it’s not the same word. Try again, please.”

He casts his mind back, to his brief infatuation with a medievalist in the second year of his PhD, when he attempted to learn Old English in order to woo him. It hadn’t worked. “Is it related to _wegan_? It’s an Old English word that means something like ‘carry’ or ‘wear’.” That word featured in a section of the poem _Beowulf_ that Ben had been particularly attached to, but he doesn’t feel like explaining that to Rey, just at the moment.

"Nope," Rey says, practically wiggling with satisfaction. "I'll give you a hint: it's a loose transliteration from Arabic."

"Arabic!" Ben exclaims. "I don't know Arabic."

Rey tuts. "Very disappointing, Doctor Solo. I thought you were educated." She's teasing, too, and there's no heat behind her words, so now it's Ben's turn to poke her. She's a little ticklish, he's figured out, and she giggles delightfully. He would like to know what other noises he could get her to make, what other parts of her body she might let him touch.

"I know a little bit of Persian," he says in his defense. "Persian poetry. Love poetry."

Rey wiggles slightly and she doesn't reply immediately, and for a moment Ben fears that he's said too much. But eventually Rey speaks again. He can't tell if he's relieved or not that she ignores what he said about the Persian. 

"Fine then, I'll tell you. Vega is from _wāqi‘_ meaning "falling" or "landing", via the phrase _an-nasr al-wāqi‘._ It means 'the falling eagle'."

Ben wants to listen to Rey lecture about the stars forever. He is aware of his own inclination towards romance—it's how he’d grown interested in classics to begin with. Even as a child he'd been drawn to the sorrow of Penelope, the tragedy of Eurydice, and the strength of Persephone, rather than the adventures of Odysseus. Ben loved his research, and so far he’d been well rewarded for it—his book on the women of Greek mythology had won him a Guggenheim—but he was lonely. He longed for someone he could talk to about the things he loved, someone who would talk to him about the things they loved, too. He wanted someone to give to him and take from him, and with his thirty-fifth birthday fast approaching he was beginning to despair of finding what he wanted. 

When he'd first met the new astronomy postdoc at the Hillel Purim celebration back in March—both of them chaperones, appointed by the rabbi to be in charge of the groggers and handing out of the mishloach manot—he’d found her pretty, but hadn't thought much of her interest in the stars. That had changed when they'd stayed after the festivities were over. They’d sat out on the cold concrete bench in front of the building until well past midnight, talking about stars and Greek myths until Rey had started to nod off and he’d insisted on walking her home. She’d given him her number and in typical fashion he’d hesitated to call her until it felt like it was too late—another opportunity missed. He avoided the science quad, made excuses for his absence at Hillel when he ran into the rabbi at the grocery store. 

A month later it was Passover. Ben had almost skipped it but the desire to see Rey again had slightly overwhelmed his shame over having never called her. She wasn’t annoyed; in fact she seemed almost glad to see him, and they sat together during the seder. Since then he’d seen her at various Hillel events and around on campus (it didn’t hurt that the newly-opened food court in the science quad had an amazing Mediterranean place that they both frequented), but it wasn’t until the first week of July that they’d somehow ended up going on a date. He still wasn’t entirely sure how that had happened but he wasn’t mad about it.

Rey's voice, contemplative, brings Ben back to the present.

“When I’m feeling down, sometimes I think about Vega, how solid it is, how clear.”

Ben stares at the dot in the sky, who knows how many millions of miles away, how it shines so much more brightly than the stars around it. The star is like Rey, and he’s falling in love with her. It’s a free-fall, brilliant and terrifying, and he can’t see the ground.

“Rey, do you think about falling?”

Another poke. “No, silly. I think about _landing_.”

"Landing is good," Ben muses. "How far away is it?"

“Vega is 25.05 light years from Earth.”

“Wow. That’s a long way from here.”

“Yes, it is.”

On their first date—dinner, followed by a show at the University's planetarium—Ben decided that he wanted to marry Rey. On their second date—Nepalese food and a stroll to the pond and back—he'd walked her to the door of her apartment building and she'd kissed him, before saying goodnight and going inside alone. This is their third date, and Ben wants to bring her home, take her to bed. He wants to make love to her—or fuck her into the mattress, whichever she prefers—in any case he wants to make her feel good and to feel good with her, and then he wants to do it again and again and again. Ben Solo is not a confident man when it comes to matters of the heart, but he is very sure that Rey is going to spend the night with him tonight. She's open, and flirty, and even to him—awkward, uncertain—the signs seem good. However, right now they are laying outside, in the park, on a blanket in the grass, and Rey is telling him about stars, and he could do this forever, too. 

While Ben was thinking, Rey had released his hand and maneuvered herself between his body and his arm, which is now wrapped around her back, his thumb stroking the soft cotton of her sundress just below her shoulder blade, her head resting on his chest and her entire body pressed into his side. Her breasts are there, and her legs. If she bent her leg it could entwine with his. Ben stays very still.

"Vega isn’t my favorite part of the constellation, though." Rey whispers.

"No?"

She shakes her head against his chest, releasing the scent of her shampoo. It's light and floral and he breathes it in. He wants his pillows to smell like that. He wonders what her skin smells like, the slick skin between her legs. He wonders what she tastes like. 

"My favorite is Sheliak—it's part of the star system called Beta Lyrae."

"There's that word again!"

She reaches around and pokes him on his other side, then leaves her arm draped across his body; he’s thankful her arm is resting on his belly and not any lower. 

"Hush. Anyway as I was saying—Sheliak. It's not a star."

"No?" Ben glances down at where Rey's head rests. She's not looking in the sky any more. She is gazing up at him, and her eyes shine in the darkness. She's so close he could kiss her. "What is it, if it's not a star?" 

"It's a binary star, two stars that revolve around each other.” She holds up two fingers and rotates her wrist back and forth, and Ben’s face heats as he thinks about doing something like that with his own fingers. “Those two are so close that material from one star flows to the other." Her eyes flit down to his mouth and then back to his eyes. Ben swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. He desperately wants to fidget but somehow finds the strength not to. "Now tell me about the lyre, Ben. I know you want to."

He did, but now that he's on the spot he's feeling self-conscious. "I just wanted you to know that I know, that I got the reference."

She rolls her eyes. "I knew you would get the reference, you're a classicist. I want you to tell me." 

Ben wants to touch her face. The story means something to her, but he doesn't know what, or why. He wants to know; he wants her to tell him. But she wants him to tell her the story, so he does. 

"The lyre belonged to Orpheus, whose wife Eurydice was killed by a snake bite. He traveled to the Underworld, and through his musical skill he convinced the king of the Underworld to give him a chance to bring her back."

He pauses, takes in the sound of the breeze in the trees, and Rey’s breath. Her gaze is unfocused now, directed somewhere past his ear.

"What happened?" She whispers tensely, as though perhaps this time the story will end differently—Orpheus won't turn around, Eurydice won't be lost forever. And why not?

"He brought her home," Ben whispers, and gives her a squeeze. "And he carried her over the threshold and took her to bed, and he showed her exactly how much she meant to him."

Ben would travel to the Underworld for Rey. He would do whatever the king asked of him, and he would bring Rey home and make love to her and they would be like a binary star, giving and taking from each other until the universe collapses and explodes and becomes an altogether new universe, and then he would do it again.

A tear traces down Rey's cheekbone; her attention is on him again. "Did they live happily ever after?"

"They did."

She wipes her face against his chest unapologetically, and smiles. "I like that ending. It makes me think, it's time for you to take me home."

"Oh." Ben tries not to sound too disappointed. “Right.” He figures it was going too well. Damn his classical education for teaching him to read too much into everything. He lets her go, begins the process of extracting his arm from where it winds around her body. "Yeah, it is getting late, I should get you home…" He's interrupted by Rey, clamoring on top of him and straddling his torso, both of her palms against his chest, her face inches from his own. Her eyes are wide and wild, and he can see her teeth. She is Eurydice, back from the dead, and she is hungry.

"I mean," she growls—and this time the heat in her words is palpable—"it's time for you to take me home _with you_." And she kisses him, just to make sure her meaning is clear.

By the time they stop kissing they’ve rolled off the blanket and Rey is lying on her back in the grass, her skirt dragged well up her thighs, buns askew. Ben swears that he can see stars shining in her eyes.

“Yes,” he says, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “I want to take you home.”

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> I am @FlowerOfCarrots on Twitter and leoba on Pillowfort, come say hi!
> 
> OH and if you like this story, you might also like my story [Sunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226451), which also has Rey and Ben falling in love with a bit of mythology in the background.


End file.
